


Stages

by Destina



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-03
Updated: 2004-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-03 23:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4118587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Destina/pseuds/Destina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's not as resistant to change as he used to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Brighid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brighid/gifts).



> Written for Brighid and posted to LJ in 2004; posted to AO3 in June 2015. Episode tag of sorts for Zero Hour.

One hour after the miracle of their not-resurrection occurs, Jack has his team in the briefing room, mapping out the details of their mundane captivity. Daniel talks for what seems like hours, on and on about glyphs and cryptographic keys. Carter chimes in with details about power sources and impenetrable walls and energy readings and transport rings that popped up out of nowhere. Teal'c's contribution to the debriefing -- aside from a detailed description of the battle with the Jaffa -- is a smile in Carter's direction. A smile. Out of nowhere. About nothing at all. It's disconcerting. Jack stares at Teal'c's curved lips with bemusement, until he feels Daniel's frown crawling up the side of his neck. Time to pay attention again -- as if he could take his eyes off any of them if he _tried._

Teal'c never used to smile in briefings. But everything has changed, and now Teal'c is smiling, and Daniel looks tired but relieved, and Carter is every inch the commanding officer Jack knew she would be. It's strangely gratifying, this pride Jack can't quite push back. He knows he shouldn't be so smug about Carter's calm under fire, or the evidence that Daniel knows battle tactics as well as Teal'c, or Teal'c's confidence in his new team leader. He's had very little to do with shaping them; they all came predisposed to being the best at everything. Even so, he's sure the smile on his face gives him away.

He wants to praise Carter, tell her she's done a good job keeping her team alive and getting them back in one piece, but he saves that for her review. Instead, he says, "Next time, pick a planet where there's cool stuff, huh?" to Daniel, who rolls his eyes, playing along as if Jack's brain is made of the densest material on the planet. A few hours ago, Jack was of the opinion it actually might be, but now he's on board with the prevailing view: he can cut it. They all can. This is what they do. This is how they find their way back to center, after straying too far outside the circle.

There's a discarded loop of images still swirling along the back edges of Jack's mind: Daniel writhing in pain, acid in his veins; Carter screaming as she falls to her death; Teal'c's stoicism crumbling beneath the weight of Ba'al's relentless quest for information. They all know what he fears. After all, they all know each others' life stories. This is why there are a few things Jack keeps to himself, things he can safely confide only to the inside of a whiskey bottle, in the whisper of glass to lips, and drunken head to pillow; things he relives in dreams, where they are safely set aside.

In a year or ten, he might touch his lips to the edge of Daniel's ear and whisper some of those secrets in that safe place, but not yet. Not yet.

Eventually, Jack suspects he's going to start liking this adrenaline rush, the high that comes with getting the day's job done without losing anyone in the process. The joy of seeing Daniel's face when he steps through the event horizon, the thrill of seeing Carter's smile and Teal'c's tiny bow - the day will come when Jack finds satisfaction in all those things, when he forgets that SG-1 is made of miracles.

On that day, he's going to resign.

 

*****

That night, Jack isn't quite drunk yet when Daniel takes hold of him by the belt loops and tugs him backwards to the sofa. Jack almost wishes he was; sometimes the edge of pleasure with Daniel is so intense that he wants something to blur it just a bit, just enough to keep it manageable, to keep it from filling up every space and corner of his life. It's so big and bright it scares him, this wanting; he can't control it, can't maintain it.

Daniel pulls off his shirt, tugs away his belt, then reaches up for him, hands sliding through Jack's hair, cupping the shape of his skull. Their lips meet, and this is all it takes to set Jack's hands in motion, in opposite directions from Daniel's, tweaking open the buttons of Daniel's shirt while Daniel's fingers smooth up his chest, over his nipples, across his shoulders. It's not choreographed, but it might as well be; they each feel their way through the dance.

Every kiss is broken, punctuated by grunts and gasps, breath drawn in sharply, panting laughter, muttered words. Not quite commands - they are only whispered requests, or maybe they're not spoken aloud at all - but they each know what's wanted, what's needed.

The first time they did this, Daniel closed his eyes, and then Jack knew it was safe to close his own. But now Daniel wants his eyes open - he doesn't live in his head, when they are together. And Jack wants to see everything Daniel wants to show him. Jack's not sure he will even last long enough to get his jeans off, but Daniel tugs and pulls and then he is free. When he catches his breath, then blows it out again in a shaky sigh, Daniel kisses the base of his throat and closes his fingers around Jack's dick. 

When Daniel comes, his blissed-out expression is all Jack sees, all Jack will ever see. All he ever wants. It terrifies him. Daniel bites his own lip hard, then kisses Jack, and Jack's pounding heart slows. His heart knows enough to take comfort when it's offered, even if Jack is too scared to agree.

They're too tired to move to the bed, or too lazy, maybe. Contentment isn't something Jack's been fortunate enough to run across often in his life, but he's no fool. He wraps an arm tightly around Daniel and they settle close on the too-small couch. Morning will bring another 16-hour day of work. It's a busy week, in a time of transition. 

Jack concentrates on the weight beneath his arm and thinks of nothing in particular. After midnight, Daniel's eyes blink open sleepily. He touches Jack's cheek with warm lips, rolls off the sofa and leads Jack to bed. Jack follows, pretending to settle back down to sleep. It's easier than the explaining why he's wide awake.

 

*****

Near dawn, Jack climbs out of bed, careful not to jostle Daniel as he goes. He walks around the house, restless. Crooked bars of moonlight mix with early morning grey; the light slants across the living room, cutting through the darkness. He stands in the middle of the room, grounded in the familiar, and looks around him at his past. 

Sara framed Jack's certs and put his medals in shadowboxes, back when Charlie was still alive. Though he couldn't have cared less about them as symbols of accomplishment, he hung them in his new house -- the house Sara had never seen -- to have a remnant of her presence, of his family. A temporary fill for an empty space. 

After so many years, he can't bear to take any of them down. He passes by them every day, but he's trained himself not to see; they linger, a part of the landscape, invisible. He straightens each of them on the wall, using one finger to get them back in line. They are heavy with sentiment, enough of it to bring the whole house crashing down on him with their weight. 

He sinks down into the couch and runs his hand into the hollow between the cushions, as if some trace of Daniel's warmth will still be there. Daniel's presence finds Jack everywhere. He's grown used to it; he barely knows how to be without it. All the possibilities play themselves out in the darkness. This is a movie he's seen before, but he used to be the star. Now Daniel's tortured body has taken his place. 

Jack remembers everything about Ba'al, about what it means to be his prisoner, though he's tried to forget. Like bile, the images slide up from the inside, thin and bitter. He remembers waking without pain, which was the worst agony of all, since a clean slate is made only to be marked, used, destroyed. Most of all he remembers Daniel's voice, the haunted, helpless anguish masked by soft reassurance. Jack knows what can make a man return for his dead, only to find the dead are more alive than their saviours. 

There isn't much Jack would change about his life. If it isn't worth doing right the first time, it isn't worth doing over. Or so he tells himself. He swings his feet up on the couch and waits for the light to brighten from blue-gray to gold. 

 

*****

 

Daniel's early morning kisses are sleepy and a little sloppy. Sometimes he misses Jack's lips altogether in his pre-coffee fog and lands near Jack's nose, or maybe at the corner of his mouth. Jack starts to smile, and then he starts to laugh, and then he guides Daniel's head in the right direction and fastens his mouth to Daniel's, licking up the taste of toothpaste when Daniel's tongue glides against his, now aimed in the right direction.

They shower separately, shave separately, and wander toward the kitchen in various stages of undress. Jack drapes a jacket across the back of a chair and rummages in the pocket for his keys, which are never there; Daniel stops by the door long enough to remind Jack that someone has to go out for the paper, but it won't be him. Too risky. When Jack opens the front door, Daniel pulls him back for a kiss.

Jack closes the door again, for a while.

Since Daniel almost never stays for breakfast, this is quite the occasion. There are eggs in the fridge, but Jack isn't that hungry, and Daniel mostly prefers a liquid breakfast, black and strong. Jack pops toast in for himself and for Daniel while Daniel opens the paper. He seems very interested in the news, but Jack is pretty sure Daniel's watching Jack out of the corner of his eye. Jack sticks his ass out for good measure when he roots around in the fridge, looking for the jelly. 

"Jack. The toast," Daniel says, without lifting a finger to fish it out. He buries his nose in the paper and gropes for his mug, as if his fingertips can find their way to the caffeine by touch. Jack eyes the back of Daniel's head, the tousled hair and the bared nape of his neck, and considers letting the toast catch on fire and light up the entire kitchen. Already smoke is wafting from the slot where his breakfast is burning.

Jack takes a knife and beats the side of the toaster until the bread pops out. "We need a new toaster," he says, marveling at the way 'we' rolled right off his tongue so easily, without even a momentary hesitation. Daniel notices, too, because the paper comes down and the eyebrows go up, and that little squint of decipherment appears.

"We do?"

"We do."

The squint narrows. "Did you just...was that...?"

"Probably." He holds Daniel's gaze, meets the slow, gentle smile with one of his own, then butters his toast with the same knife he used to whack the toaster.

If all goes well, most of Daniel's clothes will be in the closet by the end of the week; most of his gear will be stowed in the bathroom. On Saturday morning, Daniel will plug in his own toaster and make two pieces, one buttered, one plain. They will get crumbs in bed, but Jack will be shouting with laughter by the time his toast gets crushed beneath Daniel's ass, so neither one of them will care.

This is what Jack planned, while Daniel was away. He's never been much of a planner. But that's changed, too.

Jack's not as resistant to change as he used to be.


End file.
